


This Isn't Our Fate

by driedraspberry



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-03
Updated: 2015-04-03
Packaged: 2018-03-21 01:24:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3672246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/driedraspberry/pseuds/driedraspberry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU where Barry saves his mother, but also completely alters Iris' life.</p><p>Inspired by Death Parade - Iris and Barry wake up as strangers at the Quindecim Bar and find themselves inexplicably drawn to each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Isn't Our Fate

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't going to be anywhere as disturbing as Death Parade, just creepily romantic. I'm going to play loosely with some of the rules of Quindecim Bar just because. :)

_Iris._

His vision cleared slowly, as if he were rising from an enchanted dream.

He was in a booth, at a bar he’d never seen. The curtains were shimmery. The pleather couch cover was cold and scattered with tacky orange and red pillows that made his skin itch—he tossed away the one under his head. Then slowly drew upright.

The air was thick with stale cigarette smoke. And scented vaguely of rosewater.

It didn’t feel like day… But there was no music either.

Maybe he’d passed out on closing night and went unnoticed by security. Though he must’ve drank hell of a lot, since he couldn’t remember anything. Not coming here. Not the morning before. Not…anything.

That was his name—Barry Allen.

He’d been running an errand for his mother, Nora. He’d stopped at Jitters and….

_Iris._

 

* * *

 

“Anybody else here?” Iris called, stumbling on her first steps. She really should’ve rethought the five inches of heels on her boots. Not that she could remember how she got here in the first place. She had to have been drinking a hell of a lot. Probably vodka. Vodka always did her the most damage.

She reached the elevators and tried just about anything to get out. She paced about, looking for a door. Even a window. Hell, a crack in the wall.

But she found zilch. Nada.

“Hello?” She called louder now. “I’m getting really, really creeped out. I can’t be alone! Am I? Anyone? Please!”

Worn and dissuaded, she staggered back to the bar. Its occult décor was unsettling, but since she’d gone all out on the vodka last night, more couldn’t hurt. It would definitely help the sting of panic and nausea that was building inside her, threatening to develop into all out terror.

She lifted herself over the counter, about to hop over and help herself to a shot, or ten—

“Iris?”

 

* * *

 

_“What are you doing here, little lady?”_

_Little lady?_

_Officer Beer-Gut was lucky Iris didn’t press down on gas and run him down for the slight. But he wasn’t worth her time, or the effort. Instead, she switched her keys out and slid off the side of her new bike—Mom had bought it for her twenty-fifth birthday. ~~~~_

_“I said—”_

_Iris walked past him in quick steps, knowing he’d have to struggle to catch up. She smirked at his huffing._

_“—what are you—”_

_“My dad’s the chief here. You might know him—Commissioner West.” She turned just in time to see the policeman’s color change._

_He cleared his throat roughly and grumbled to her to hurry along then._

_She had made it all the way to the Central City Police Department. Made it past Officer Beer-Gut. Even made it up the stairs to the sliding front doors. But there, she froze. She stalked about for ages and, at one point, took out her phone to call him, Commissioner West. Joe West—her dad. The dad she hadn’t seen in years and years._

_But she never did call._

_She never went inside either._

_Some half an hour later, she found herself at a coffee place a couple of blocks south. Jitters. She sat there for ages, staring at the number on her phone, until she heard her name._

_“Iris?”_

 

* * *

 

“That’s the last thing I remember.” Iris tossed her locks off her shoulder to look at her new buddy. She smiled, for his sake more than hers.

A faint blush dusted his pale cheeks and a slow smile followed. “You remember me?”

She laughed. “I remember your voice—calling my name.”

“Iris,” he said softly. Then, as if tasting the word on his tongue, he said it again and again, more wistfully each time.

“Do you remember anything? What’s your name?”

His smile was gone now. “Barry Allen. But I don’t know much else.”

“You don’t remember what happed after? At the coffee place, I mean—Jupiter’s? Jeter’s?”

He shook his head, and when his sad green eyes found hers, Iris had to resist the temptation of petting him like she would a distressed puppy.

“This is probably some stupid prank,” she said, not really believing it herself. There was something really unsettling about this place. It felt…sterilized. Dead.

“Listen, Iris.” When she turned he was looking at her with steely determination. Not so much a puppy now, but somehow newly assured. Even his voice, low and soft as it had gone, was determined. “We’re going to be okay. I don’t remember a lot, but I remember a feeling. Something I promised you…”

But instead of continuing, he reached for her with such easy familiarity. And she responded similarly. It felt natural. Them. Touching. His hand was warm—alive, in this stale, dead place. And his thumb brushed her cheek with such a gentle attention, it were as if he thirsted for the feel of her skin.

“Do I know you?” Iris whispered, because that was all she could manage. A hot, strangled whisper. “Did we—last night, did we _meet_?”

But he wasn’t listening. Spellbound, he stared at her lips, inching towards her in a slow drift.

And there wasn’t a single part of Iris that resisted his kiss.

 

 


End file.
